


A Journey to Middle-Earth (& Poker)

by ZombieliciousXIII



Series: The Life and Times of Superheroes and Villains [2]
Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Bucky enables him, Clint is cooler than legolas, Crack, Domestic Avengers, Fluff, Funny, Humor, Lord of the Rings, Poker, Steve is a little shit, Team as Family, and Tony loves it, and a total troll, clueless thor, natasha is a bamf
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-25
Updated: 2017-04-25
Packaged: 2018-10-23 21:55:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,572
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10728033
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ZombieliciousXIII/pseuds/ZombieliciousXIII
Summary: In which Steve and Bucky watch Lord of the Rings for the first time, Natasha is a natural born gambler, and Clint now goes by Legolas.





	A Journey to Middle-Earth (& Poker)

**Author's Note:**

> After having a Lord of the Rings marathon of my own, this thought came to mind and I just couldn't help myself, I hope you guys enjoy!

“Hey Buck, you ready?” Steve asks, scrolling through Netflix - he’d finally gotten the hang of using the Jarvis is control tablet.

“Are you sure this is even any good?” The brunet asks, plopping down onto the couch with a bowl of popcorn. “I mean all three movies,  _ alone _ , are nearly four hours long - forget about the prequels.”

“Natasha said these movies were a game changer,” the blond replies, selecting the first one. “But apparently we have to watch the newer ones first since they  _ are  _ prequels, even if they came out later...how does that makes sense?”

Answering with sniff, Bucky takes a sip of his Rockstar - what can he say? Bucky liked his sugar, no matter how much Steve bitched at him for it.

“Alright, well I’m holding her to that.” The brunet settles into his seat, popcorn warm on his lap, and admits that while film has taken amazing strides over the years, there had yet to be anything that really wowed him - he kinda gave up on finding a ‘good move’ after  _ Sharknado _ .

“If we don’t like it, we can always change it and watch  _ Adventure Time _ instead,” Steve says, sitting down beside his best fella - and yes, Captain America and the Winter Solider were  _ Adventure Time  _ fans, what? They’re only human.

“Alright, sounds good,” tossing a popcorn kernel into his mouth with practiced precision, “let's get this shin-dig started!”

“Steve, for everyone’s sake  _ and _ mine, stop trying to be ‘hip’.”

“Oh please, I’m  _ totally  _ Woke with the Fleeky Lit times!”

Bucky answers that by cuffing the back of Steve’s head - the blond laughs.

* * *

 

“I win again, boys,” Natasha preens, pulling in a mountain of poker chips towards herself.

“J'acuse! You totally cheated!” Tony balks, throwing down his cards. “Remained me to  _ never _ play with super-spies, like,  _ ever  _ again.”

“You’re the one who started this, Stark,” the redhead chuckles, stretching back in her seat.

“Whatever,” Tony grumbles, rolling his eyes. “You still totally cheated…”

“What was that?” Natasha arches a brow and Tony shrinks back, hands raised.

“Nothing, nothing!”

“Thor did pretty good for a newbie,” Bruce comments, gaining a winning smile from the God.

“Yeah, when he finally got the hang of it,” Clint chortles, tossing his own hand onto the table. “I can’t believe he asked you if a  _ Royal Flush  _ was a winning hand, talk about beginner’s luck!”

“Aye! We have similar games to these on Asgard!” Thor chimes in, putting his cards onto the table. “Though we bet with gold, not plastic, strange customs you Midgardians have.”

“Thor, for the  _ millionth  _ time, the chips are  _ worth  _ money!” Tony laughs, shaking his head at the thunder God.

“Yup, which means you morons, collectively, owe me five-thousand bucks,” Natasha reminds and the men groan.

“The Man of Iron shall, as you say here, ‘pick up the tab’,” Thor tries, grinning like a manic, but the moment his words register with Tony the brunet all but cackles.

“Like hell I will!”

“Hey, I’m just a broke birdy, all I have to offer is my nest!” Clint exaggerates, holding up his hands in defeat, pouting like a child. “You wouldn’t evict a bird from his nest, now would you Tone?”

“And I am but a poor green bean!” Bruce adds, throwing his best puppy-eyes at Tony - very clearly fighting off a shit-eating grin.

Tony tries to fight them, but relents before looking back at Thor, “what’s your excuse, big guy?”

“I have no knowledge of what Midgardian currency looks like,” Thor blatantly lies, and at that Tony can’t help but bust a seam laughing - the damn dork nearly _bought out_ _Starbucks_ the moment he realized what a Frappuccino was.

“Fine, but you assholes owe me!” Digging out his wallet Tony sifts through the accessory only to huff and simply toss Natasha the whole thing, he may have been rich but even  _ he  _ didn’t carry around that amount of cash - and lord knows Natasha probably already somehow  _ knew _ the pin numbers to all his bank accounts. “Man, what time is it?”

“Two minutes to three in the morning, Sir,” Jarvis supplies, and the group groan.

“We’ve been at this for  _ hours!” _ Clint exclaims in disbelief, pulling out his phone to check the time - as if Jarvis would ever be wrong about something so trivial.

“Well it took Thor the better part of two hours to finally understand how to  _ properly _ play poker,” Tony states, chuckling as he pats the God on the shoulder. “Wait, where’s the Dynamic Duo?” 

“Who?” The blond God questions, raising a brow.

“He means Steve and Bucky,” Clint answers, shrugging before taking a pull of his beer.

“Last I saw them, they were in the living room,” Banner answers, cringing when he takes a sip of his, now cold, tea.

“Oh man, if their playing tonsil-hockey on the couch, I’m gonna make them disinfect it and kick their asses!” Clint exclaims, laughing as he polishes off his beer. “Not necessarily in that order.”

“What has kept them captivated for so long?” Thor asks, looking around. “Surely whatever it is must be truly wonderful, as they have not come down to speak with us once.”

“Has no one told Thor about the birds and the bees yet?” Bruce exclaims, looking genuinely shocked and takes everyone by surprise before they all begin to laugh - Thor is left clueless, mumbling that he does  _ indeed  _ know about all kinds of Avians and Anthophilous that live on Midgard, so why must he be educated on them once more?

Once the group finally calms, Tony notices Natasha check her wristwatch, again, “what do you know, Tasha?”

“That I’ll castrate you if you ever call me that again,” the redhead threatens, and Tony shrinks back a little - he can never honestly tell if she’s kidding or not - especially when she’s more than capable of carrying out her array of colorful threats. “But, I  _ may  _ have mentioned to Steve and Bucky that marathoning the  _ Lord of the Rings  _ and  _ The Hobbit  _ is mandatory…and they  _ may  _ have fallen for it.”

“How?!” Clint asks, looking genuinely surprised - a glint of mischievous excitement in his eyes.

“If you have to ask, you don’t know me as well as I thought you did, Barton,” Natasha chides, pocketing the money from the table. “And here I thought you learned your lesson in Budapest.”

“We really do remember Budapest differently...seriously, were you even  _ there?” _

“Wait…” Tony mumbles, the pieces finally clicking in his mind. “How long ago was this?!”

Natasha grins, “if we run up now, we’ll catch them just as Peter Jackson’s name shows up.”

Tony was up like a shot, Natasha and Clint on his heels, Bruce following the trio close behind, and even Thor catches up to his friends out of sheer curiosity. The five superheroes bolt up the stairs to the communal living room, unable to wait for the elevator - no matter how fast it may be - and duck into the room. Tony holds out his hands and puts a finger to his lips in a silent  _ sh!;  _ nobody makes a sound. The memorable end credits song of  _ Lord of the Rings  _ plays throughout the floor, loud enough to conceal the groups sneaking, and what they find is nothing short of adorably hilarious. Ice-cream and snacks strewn across the living room table, tissues and blankets on the floor, but what makes the five Avengers’ hearts melt the most is the sight of the two men in the middle of it all.

An emotional unison of…

“Frodo!”

“Sam!”

Is belted out by the two super-soldiers, the two men look like children as they cling to each other, crying out lines from  _ Lord of the Rings _ to each other - apparently Bucky was the Frodo to Steve’s Sam - as they cling for dear life onto one another.

“Jarvis, please tell me you have about a  _ zillion  _ pictures and videos of this,” Tony whispers out, casting a quick glance to the A.I.’s camera.

“I’d say about a zillion and one, and counting, Sir.”

“Did you guys seriously eat all this?” Clint asks, waltzing into the living room and picks up a packet of chips, only to find it empty. “I was planning on-”

“Shut it Legolas!” Bucky glares, teary eyed before hugging Steve again mumbling things about the movie.

The sandy-blond glares.

“That is  _ not  _ becoming a thing!”

Tony and Bruce smirk, walking up to the archer and each place a hand on his shoulders.

“Oh that’s a thing now,” Bruce chuckles, walking into the kitchen.

Tony pats Clint’s shoulder and says with a Cheshire Cat smirk, “it’s  _ so  _ a thing.”

“Dammit…” Clint pouts, because while the archer may have not been the sharpest tool in the shed, he knew without a shadow of a doubt he’d be going by  _ Legolas  _ for an uncertain amount of time - it took them almost a  _ year _ for them to finally stop calling him Katniss! Dammit!

“Hey Legolas, what do you want for dinner?” Natasha calls from the kitchen, and Clint fights back the urge to call her  _ Strawberry Shortcake,  _ if only because he knows his arrows would end up in not-so-nice places.

“Thai food, m’lday!” Might as well enjoy it. “But I’m  _ way  _ hotter than Orlando Bloom!”

“Whatever helps you sleep at night, Lego-Man!” Steve laughs, snuggling against Bucky on the couch - no one outside of the Avengers would ever believe it, but Steve was totally a little shit.

**Author's Note:**

> I hope you guys enjoyed! Please remember to leave a comment about that you thought!
> 
> (This story has also been posted on Tumblr under my same username, but nowhere else, so if you find it elsewhere please let me know!!)


End file.
